Held at Magness Arena at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado.

Hosted by Jim Lehrer of the "PBS NewsHour"

Sponsored by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.

90 minutes on domestic issues in six segments:

Three on the economy and one each on health care, the role of government and governing.

Since third-party canddates are excluded by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates,
"Democracy Now!" aired a live commentary called Expanding the Debate, including two 3rd-party candidates, the Green Party's Jil Stein and the Justice Party's Rocky Anderson.

Commentary: The mainstream media widely viewed Romney as having "won" this first debate.
Obama several times seemed disengaged, and certainly not up to his usual level of passion.

On the issues, however, Obama did respond to all of Romney's key points.
Obama's lack of passion and engagement seems to have come from lack of preparedness.
I.e., Obama was not ready to respond to Romney's views.

Another way to view this debate is that Romney changed several of his key issue stances just for this debate -- he finally implemented the "Etch-a-Sketch" plan which was so much the focus of the mainstream media during the summer campaign. Some examples of key issue changes:

Romney formerly pushed for tax breaks for job creators and now says he will not reduce high-income tax rates.

Romney formerly pushed for trillions of dollars in reduced spending and now says he will not have any deficit spending, despite the tax cuts.

Romney says he will accomplish the above by closing tax loopholes, but has not (and it sounds like he will not) identified the loopholes in question. He matches that with a process description for how to decide spending cuts -- he will sit down with Congressional Democrats -- so far the only identified cut is PBS' "Big Bird" (which became the tag line of this debate).

Romney has now adopted Paul Ryan's plan to allow opt-outs of Medicare (known to opponents as the "voucher plan").

Most people expected Romney to modify his stances for the general election -- but there is a risk to doing so in October. Obama will respond more effectively to Romney's new stances in the next debate -- likely with passion and engagement. And in addition, Obama will be able to point to the "Etch-a-Sketch" changes themselves for political benefit.

In summary, Romney won this debate -- and gained several points in the polls -- but at the expense of making his task harder in the subsequent debates.

OnTheIssues.org excerpts:(click on issues for details)

Budget & EconomyJill Stein: Still no end in sight to economic crisis: focus on jobs.
Barack Obama: Economic patriotism instead of top-down policies.
Barack Obama: $5T in tax cuts & $2T on defense is failed recipe from 2003.
Barack Obama: Deficit came from two wars paid for on a credit card.
Mitt Romney: Economy Tax: Middle-income families have lost $4,300.

EducationBarack Obama: 2 million more slots in our community colleges.
Barack Obama: Cut out the middleman on student loans from banks.
Mitt Romney: Let IDEA and Title I funds follow disabled child.
Mitt Romney: No cuts to college funding.

Homeland SecurityJill Stein: Bush & Obama criminalized the right to protest.
Rocky Anderson: Citizens are worried about being safe FROM our government.
Mitt Romney: Protecting life & liberty means a military second to none.

Social SecurityJill Stein: System perfectly solvent when rich pay their fair share.
Rocky Anderson: Payroll tax is as regressive a tax as known to mankind.
Barack Obama: Tweak Social Security like Reagan did, but keep entitlements.

Tax ReformBarack Obama: We got middle-class tax cuts of $3600.
Mitt Romney: I am not proposing a $5T tax cut for the rich.
Mitt Romney: To close loopholes: Perhaps allow any deductions up to $25K.

TechnologyRocky Anderson: Put 20 million to work on deteriorating infrastructure.
Mitt Romney: Stop the subsidies to PBS, even though I like Big Bird.